One of the most cited scientists in the world, the Spanish chemist Rafael Luque, has been suspended from employment and salary for the next 13 years, as confirmed to EL PAÍS by the affected person himself and his institution, the University of Córdoba. The body has sanctioned Luque for signing his studies as a researcher at other exotic centers, such as the King Saud University, in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), and the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russiain Moscow, despite having a full-time civil servant contract with the Spanish institution.
Luque, born in Córdoba 44 years ago, is one of the most productive scientists in Spain. he has published about 700 studies, especially in the field of so-called green chemistry, which tries to synthesize products, such as drugs and fuels, generating less waste. In the three months of 2023, Luque has already signed 58 studies, one every 37 hours. The chemist has been on the list of researchers for five years most cited in the world, produced by the specialized company Clarivate. Institutions all over the planet are scrambling to recruit these scientists, since one alone can see a center rise hundreds of places in international academic rankings, such as the influential ranking Shanghai, attracting more students and more tuition money. “Without me, the University of Córdoba will drop 300 positions. They have shot themselves in the foot”, affirms Luque, who attributes the sanction to “pure envy”.
Saudi Arabia’s top universities launched aggressive programs more than a decade ago to recruit the world’s most cited scientists. King Abdulaziz University, for example, began to offer them about 70,000 euros per yearon the condition of spending just one week a year on its campus and, of course, adding the name of the Saudi institution to the signature of the studies, as revealed at the time Magazine Science. Luque began in 2019 to sign as a researcher for Rey Saud, as well as as a professor at the University of Córdoba. The Spanish chemist assures that he never received money “directly” from either the Saudis or the Russians, beyond funding for his analysis, business class travel and luxurious hotels. “In my account they would not have found a penny from Russia or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else,” he proclaims.
Without me, the University of Córdoba will drop 300 places in the Shanghai ‘ranking’, they have shot themselves in the foot
Rafael Luque, chemist
The current scientific system is governed by the imperative “publish or die”. Researchers are evaluated by the number of studies they publish in specialized journals and by the number of times these works are cited by other colleagues. The well-intentioned mechanism has had perverse effects, as explained by the British engineer Nick Wise, a researcher at the University of Cambridge who, in his spare time, dedicates himself to looking for frauds in science. Wise has uncovered shady “scientific study factories”, made with paste cutters and automatic text generators, and whose authorship is secretly sold for hundreds or thousands of euros, to inflate resumes. “I have found a study by Rafael Luque whose authorship had previously been offered in a group of [la plataforma de mensajería] Telegram,” says Wise.
The Spanish researcher published five months ago that article under suspicion, on the degradation of ibuprofen in wastewater, with six co-authors from Bushehr University and another from the University of Tabriz, both in Iran. Luque assures that he has never paid to sign in a foreign study, but adds that he does not know all the Iranian co-authors and does not rule out that some of them did pay to appear. “Obviously I don’t know that, but I hallucinate with this topic. Who pays to publish a study? Someone who needs it, maybe, I don’t know ”, he affirms by videoconference from Dhahran, the heart of the Saudi oil industry, at whose university he could start a new collaboration.
Luque does not stop publishing studies, faster and faster. Last year he signed about 110. In the first quarter of 2023, he already has 58. The chemist acknowledges that since December he has been using the ChatGPT artificial intelligence program to “polish” your texts. “These months have been quite productive, because there are items that I used to need two or three days for and now I do them in one day,” he points out. ChatGPT, launched in December, is capable of generating deep texts in response to complex questions. Luque maintains that he basically uses it to improve written expression in English and flatly denies having any relationship with any wholesale study factory.
I have found a study by Rafael Luque whose authorship had previously been offered in a Telegram group”
Nick Wise, engineer at Cambridge University
the russian mathematician Alexander Magazinovlike Nick Wise, also spends his spare time searching the scientific literature “tortured phrases”: unusual expressions that are added to plagiarized texts, precisely to avoid computer programs that detect plagiarism. An example is substituting the usual “artificial intelligence” for “falsified consciousness”. Magazinov mentions that a non-existent “vegetative electron microscope” appears in two studies by Luque with Iranian colleagues.
Scientists around the world use an American website called PubPeer to comment on other colleagues’ articles anonymously and ruthlessly, not always with reason on their side. On that website there is critics about 90 studies by Luque, many of them by Magazinov himself. A common reproach is that the works of the Spanish chemist include dozens of unnecessary appointments to other articles to artificially inflate the number of citations from other colleagues. In 2018, the University of Córdoba expressed its chest that 84 out of 100 studies de Luque were cited by other scientists.
The Cordovan researcher accumulates awards, such as an award from the UK Royal Society of Chemistry in 2013 and a mention as Green Talent in 2011 by the German Ministry of Research. However, it is not the first time that he has been involved in a scandal. Two professors from the University of La Laguna, jose john marrero and David Diazdenounced in 2011 that one of their master’s students had appropriated data from their laboratory and had published it on their own, with Rafael Luque as sole co-author. Last year a court in La Laguna sentenced Luque and the former student, Daniel García, for committing a crime against intellectual property, as the Cordovan chemist admits: “I helped him review the article, put it in good English and post it, yeah I have appealed the sentence.”
They like me because I am a very prolific scientist and a lot of people love me
Rafael Luque, chemist
Luque stopped working at the University of Córdoba on December 1, 2022, after fifteen years there. Until then he mentioned in his signatures the Spanish institution, often accompanied by the Russian or the Saudi, but also by Xi’an Jiao Tong University (China) since 2019 or the University of Central Sweden since the end of 2021. In recent months it has added ECOTEC Universityin Samborondón (Ecuador), and the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria (Italy).
The Spanish chemist defends that his problems in Córdoba began when he began collaborating with the Rey Saud University in 2019, and after signing a study “by mistake of a student” as if he were only a professor at the Russian university. The team of the previous rector, José Carlos Gómez Villamandos, opened an investigation that ended with the suspension of employment and salary for 13 years, a sanction ratified in autumn 2022 by the cabinet of the new rector, manuel torralbo. EL PAÍS has asked Gómez Villamandos about the case, current college advisor of the Junta de Andalucía, without receiving a response. A spokeswoman for the University of Córdoba stresses that Luque’s sanction is for “violating aspects of incompatibility according to public personnel regulations” and that the institution has not received any complaints about the quality of its studies.
Luque acknowledges that he broke the established procedures to collaborate with other institutions, but insists on attributing the sanction to envy and a lack of understanding with the previous rector’s team. “They like me because I am a very prolific scientist and a lot of people adore me, because they know my worth. They are four envious and mediocre ”, ditch. “I have never felt supported by the University of Córdoba, despite the fact that I put it in the ranking from Shanghai. Be in the ranking They owe it entirely to me.”
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